Saturday, September 29, 2012

Tips for Taking Better Blog Photos

I sometimes feel challenged when it comes to taking photographs to post on my blogs.  Ofttimes they're good enough but not great.  The lovely Holly at Bijou Lovely has written and illustrated a post, 10 Tips for Better Blog Photos, to help me (and everyone else who reads it) learn to take better photos.

She gives dos and don'ts, explains both, and uses photos to show us exactly what she means. She discusses light, perspective, background, layout, and more.

If you're photo-challenged like I am, you'll appreciate Holly's post.


Thursday, September 27, 2012

Photos from A Small Quilt Show

A weekend ago I went to a small quilt show in a nearby small town. There were perhaps 50 quilts, at most. A few of my photographs turned out well enough to share. I didn't keep a record of who made the quilts.
I have close-ups of four of the flowers and wanted to post all of them in a row as small images but I'm having trouble with the new blogger.  It won't let me put them in a row.  So I'll just show you one.  I was a little surprised at the roughness of the edges on the applique.  I can't tell if she used a straight stitch on her sewing machine to stitch the petals in place or if the stitching is part of the quilting.  It looks like a lot of work went into this quilt.

Next are three quilts I don't have close-ups for. The one with the older women is small, less than 24" x 36".

This next quilt was chosen best of show. It was very striking with its black background and bright flowers. Except for one print it appeared that all the flowers, leaves, and squares were stitched from batiks. The quilter used a variety of applique methods. It really was the most beautiful quilt in the show.

And here are close-ups of several of the blocks.  The photography makes it appear as though there are different blacks in the background but the blocks were all of the same blackness.  (The problem was the light and my unpolished photography skills.)

Monday, September 24, 2012

Cotton

"It'd been nearly a month and a half since the white flower of the cotton plant had bloomed, turned pink, faded into red, then grew deep purple and fell to the earth below....


"We walked out of the barn and were met by a hallelujah chorus of white. As if sprayed from heaven, the fields had exploded into a seamless sea of fluffy white. Hundreds of thousands of cottony white hands rose up out of the earth and reaching to heaven blanketed the landscape with texture, tenderness, and promise."

from Maggie by Charles Martin, p. 286

For other view of cotton fields look here or here.  Image above by Martin LaBar.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

W.i.P. Wednesday - Slow But Sure

My progress on the bed-size High Five is slow but steady. I have between half and two-thirds of the blocks made and decided there were enough to lay them out and have a look.  I wanted to see the colors, see which are too few, which too many, and whether I should omit some.  They are not arranged, just laid out.

I think I have too many lights and not enough brights, especially primary brights but maybe that's because of the way they're laid out. But maybe I really need more lights.  Today I finished more blocks but I didn't add them before taking the photo.


Progress report:

Color blocks for High Five, cut at 5"
280 (or more) needed
93 made this week
188 finished
2 in progress
90 yet to cut and sew
Hey!  If I made 93 in a week I could conceivably have all the blocks finished by next week!  Wow.  That would be progress!


Pastel strings for Sunday Morning, cut at 8"
No progress this week!
108 (or more) needed
16 sewn and cut to size
24 ready to be cut
68 in progress


String-X
Quilting still in progress
There's not exactly a way to document the progress on this unless I counted blocks quilted -- and I don't really quilt by the block.  I've decided that if I devote at least 15 minutes/day to quilting I will eventually finish it!




I've linked to W.i.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.  You'll see lots of other works in progress there. too.











On Another Note:
Is anyone else feeling challenged by the new blogger interface? Its behind-the-scenes beauty is gone. It used to be easy to change the size of a photo by clicking on the image in compose mode, then using the mouse to drag the corner larger or smaller.  That option is no longer available.  How sad because it means I can't arrange 3 or 4 or 5 small photos side-by-side or in any other arrangement.   

Friday, September 14, 2012

Thoughts on Scrap Quilts

Q. When is a scrap quilt not a scrap quilt?
A. When I have to buy fabric to make it.


If I have to buy fabric to make a quilt, then my scrap quilt looks like a scrap quilt but isn't really a scrap quilt because I'm not using scraps anymore. Right?

I have a good supply of fabric from years of sewing but I find that my color preferences for clothes were narrower than my color preferences for quilting. These days I find myself buying fabric by color range....

But then, what's in a name?  These days when we hear "scrap quilt" we probably think more of a style of quilt rather than origin of the fabric for the quilt.

If you're a scrap quilter, where do you get your scraps?
If you're not a scrap quilter, what do you do with your scraps?
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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Thoughtful Quilts, Mindless Quilts - W.i.P. Wednesday

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you have to think about the quilt you're sewing and other times you can mindlessly stitch the pieces of a quilt together?


For example, the two blocks above are mindless blocks. I collect and/or cut the strips and put them in a basket or box, then all I have to do is stitch them together one after the other. When the sewn strips are 8" wide I quit adding strips. I wait till I have a pile then iron the pieces when I'm talking on the phone or watching a program. After the stack is ironed I take them to my cutting mat and cut one edge of each block even. Next I add the perpendicular strips. I iron everything flat again, then cut each block into a square. Very little thinking involved especially if I do the same step over and over for many blocks.

On the other hand, the little blocks below take more effort. It is not a thoughtless, mindless quilt. The blocks are all the same size but each block uses 5 different fabrics: 4 of the same/similar color and one contrasting color in the center. I have a mess of fabric sitting on my table sorted into piles of different colors. I lay out each block individually to try out the fabrics. Some fabrics are used in more than one block (because my stash is not large enough to use a fabric only once). I adore making these little blocks but this quilt is not a mindless quilt.


Much more thought and time goes into a quilt like the one with the little blocks than into a scrappy string quilt. I work on a mindless quilt when I'm tired but still have a little energy or when I want to think about other things or solve a problem. I work on thoughtful quilts like the one with color blocks when I have more mental energy.

How about you? Do you have several quilts in progress at the same time? Do you have periods of high and low energy with different quilts for each? How do you work on your quilts?

Progress report:
Pastel strings, cut at 8":
108 (or more) needed
16 sewn and cut to size
24 ready to be cut
68 in progress

Color blocks, cut at 5":
280 (or more) needed
95 finished
30 in progress
155 yet to cut and sew


Sunday, September 9, 2012

From the Flower Garden

I love the strong shadows of the banister railings
in this little garden shelter



and the gentle shadows of the flowers
outside the garden shelter.


View more photos at Shadow Shot Sunday.
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Joy for Grace



Blessings to you this Sabbath Day.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Thrift for Quilts

Sometimes I shop for my quilt fabric at the thrift store. Sometimes I find shirts and skirts that look brand new. Sometimes I buy them for 50 cents or a dollar. Usually a shirt or skirt has more than a fat quarter in it.

I've never been a person devoted to the newest, the most modern, or the most stylish, so I don't mind that I'm not buying the most popular designer quilting fabrics.

Before I buy anything at the thrift store I take a whiff of it. If there's the least scent of mildew or age it stays at the store. If I smell fabric softener I know that will wash out, but it's nearly impossible to get rid of the mildew and age odors.

Immediately upon arriving in my home I remove the tags and toss the clothes in the dryer for 20 minutes. Bedbugs are not welcome at my house.

The next order of business is to soak them in the washer to remove "human" odors. I use the lowest water level setting and use the hottest water that's safe for the clothes. I add 1/2 cup salt and 1 cup of vinegar. The clothes rest in the water for at least 30 minutes. Then I add regular laundry soap/detergent, more water, and wash as usual.

About 10 years ago I saw plaid fabrics used for quilts in Roberta Horton's book, Scrap Quilts: The Art of Making Do. The fabric stores didn't have many plaids but the thrift stores had wonderful, nearly new plaid shirts for 50 cents. I was on my way. I still have plenty of plaids which I don't hesitate to mix with prints and plains.

I credit Roberta Horton's book with my foray into thrift store fabric shopping.
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Thursday, September 6, 2012

A New Item for My To-Do List

Put chocolate at the top of your to-do list
so you can check off at least one thing every day.

At least I can cross that off my list today.  Yesterday I cleaned the room I use for all my creative endeavors - sewing, quilting, writing, family history (oh, that's not so creative, is it?).   I cleaned top to bottom because it was really an overwhelming jumble.  I left the fabric and the family history papers for today.

A pile very similar to the one below is still here.  It's for a color block quilt (also known as "High Five" from Sunday Morning Quilts).

I hoped to sort the fabrics by color. It's easier to decide fabrics for blocks when the colors are together.   I choose the fabrics for the outside border, then choose a fabric for the inner square/rectangle.   I hang them on the board (below) and pull them off to sew.  Sometimes I take them off and change the colors.  Other times I stitch away.


As hard as I tried, I didn't get the job done. Sewing the quilt kept pulling me away from sorting and organizing the fabric.  Teddy Roosevelt once said, "I can be president of the United States, or I can control Alice [his spirited, vivacious daughter].  I cannot possibly do both."   I can organize fabric or sew fabric, but I can't possibly do both -- at least not at the same time.

There's always tomorrow.  At least I was able to check off eating chocolate on my to-do list today.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you had/are having a good day today.
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Light - Seven Hours in One Image


I love watching how the light changes through the day, from morning to evening, from blue to golden. I thought this photo captured it very well (though I know it's probably been altered).

Do morning people love blue? My husband is a morning person and his favorite color is blue. But then don't most guys claim blue as their favorite color? On the other hand, I'm not a morning person and I don't like blue too much. I'm an afternoon/evening person and I love the golden evening tones of sunset (though not so much pure yellows). Do most night people prefer warm colors?

Is there a correlation between our peak time of energy and our color preferences? Hmmmm. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by.
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